ABSTRACT The effects of land-use change (LUC) on soil carbon (C) balance has to be taken into account in calculating the CO2 savings attributed to bioenergy crops1,2,3. There have been few

direct field measurements that quantify the effects of LUC on soil C for the most common land-use transitions into sugar cane in Brazil, the world’s largest producer 1,2,3. We quantified the

C balance for LUC as a net loss (carbon debt) or net gain (carbon credit) in soil C for sugar-cane expansion in Brazil. We sampled 135 field sites to 1 m depth, representing three major LUC

scenarios. Our results demonstrate that soil C stocks decrease following LUC from native vegetation and pastures, and increase where cropland is converted to sugar cane. The payback time

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CROPS ON SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND PROFITABILITY IN A TEMPERATE HUMID CLIMATE Article Open access 07 August 2020 COUNTERFACTUAL SCENARIOS REVEAL HISTORICAL IMPACT OF CROPLAND MANAGEMENT

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank São Paulo Research Foundation — FAPESP (2011/ 07105-7), Shell Global Solutions (UK), Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology Laboratory — CTBE for financial

support. We thank all sugar-cane mills, associations and individual farmers who supported the soil sampling and provided access to field work. We also thank B. Ide and E.C. Reidel for their

valuable help in finding the comparison pairs and G. Ferrão for support and fieldwork organization. F.F.C.M. wishes to thank W. Clark, N. Dickson and the Sustainability Science Program at

the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, for help and guidance during the writing and analysis process, and CAPES, CNPq and the Italian Ministry for Environment, Land

and Sea for the scholarship granted while this research paper was developed. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture, University of São Paulo,

Piracicaba, SP, 13416-000, Brazil Francisco F. C. Mello & Carlos C. Cerri * Sustainability Science Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge,

Massachusetts 02138, USA Francisco F. C. Mello & N. Michele Holbrook * ‘Luiz de Queiroz’ College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo, Piracicaba, SP, 13418-260, Brazil Carlos E. P.

Cerri * Shell Technology Centre Houston, 3333 Highway 6 South Houston, Texas 77082, USA, Christian A. Davies * Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University,

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA N. Michele Holbrook * Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado

80523, USA Keith Paustian * Instituto Federal de Alagoas, Maceió, AL, 57035-350, Brazil Stoécio M. F. Maia * Laboratório Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia do Bioetanol — CTBE, Campinas, SP,

13830-970, Brazil Marcelo V. Galdos * Institut de Recherche pour le Développement — IRD, UMR Eco&Sols, 2 place Viala 34060 Montpellier, France, Martial Bernoux Authors * Francisco F. C.

Mello View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Carlos E. P. Cerri View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

Scholar * Christian A. Davies View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * N. Michele Holbrook View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar * Keith Paustian View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Stoécio M. F. Maia View author publications You can

also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Marcelo V. Galdos View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Martial Bernoux View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Carlos C. Cerri View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS

F.F.C.M., C.E.P.C., C.C.C. and C.A.D. designed the study and conducted the analyses. S.M.F.M. and K.P. developed the model to determine the LUC factors for sugar cane. All the authors

contributed to writing the paper. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Francisco F. C. Mello. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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al._ Payback time for soil carbon and sugar-cane ethanol. _Nature Clim Change_ 4, 605–609 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2239 Download citation * Received: 18 November 2013 *

Accepted: 04 April 2014 * Published: 08 June 2014 * Issue Date: July 2014 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2239 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able

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